A/N: *waves nervously* So I don't generally do massive splurges of angst about FEELINGS. This is a massive splurge of angst about FEELINGS. And I don't quite know where it's going except ever since last night I sort of feel like I HAVE to write it. And see where it goes. Anyway, I guess I hope you enjoy it? Or find it cathartic possibly? Maybe not this bit, but the whole thing. It's going to be in two parts or three, if I have the courage to yank the rating up in part 3. I've never written anything M rated without OrangeShipper to hold my hand. We'll see...

Part One: Kicking the chest

Somehow in his grief he had forgotten all about it.

It seemed like a kick in the face, another kick in the face that was, to see this memento of his damn stupidity sitting there at the back of his sock drawer. At some point he must have placed it there for safe keeping.

Safe keeping? The stupid, little toy was indestructible; it had come through the war more unscathed than himself. Its beady, black, glassy eyes were unblinking and accusatory as they stared up at Matthew where the dog lay in the palm of his hand. Good luck? Was that what it had brought him? Was he supposed to be lucky for having this life? This non-life? A life without love or hope and filled instead with soul-crushing guilt? What if... what if the toy had been responsible not for his luck but his lack of it? William dead, him injured, crippled, all his hopes crushed, lied to by the doctor, his eyes opened too late, Lavinia dead... There was no luck in recovering; anybody could recover. Anybody except for those who did not want to.

Matthew's hand closed firmly round the charm and he closed his eyes tightly. His throat felt strangely constrained. He wanted to dismiss his gloomy thoughts but at the same time there was a perverse pleasure to be gained from the way they pricked and jabbed at him.

She had been a witch giving it to him. If she had not done so he could have died with William, instead of William. Would it have been better if he had? Once upon a time he had said that a soldier would rather die instantly than live a half life. He had regained feeling in his legs but the rest of him... the rest of him still felt numb. She had brought him back. And he did not want to be back. Not now.

Eventually he opened his eyes and they fell on his large, heavy wooden chest of drawers. His bedroom was flooded with bright, innocent summer light, dust motes floating over the open drawers, his clothing neatly stacked in piles around his room and in his suitcases. It was such an ordinary room, so very, very bloody ordinary. Looking at it now, he felt as he had when he had left his childhood bedroom in Manchester only now he was well over thirty and he was no longer a child. At least – Well, in some respects- He had thought this room would be different. He had had expectations. He had had dreams.

A sudden uncontrollable wave of anger, resentment, regret and misery washed over him and he kicked the chest with all his strength, before crying out in pain and dropping the toy to the floor as he sank onto the bed, clutching his leg. He found himself blinking and breathing hard as stabs of hot agony pricked through his legs, unwelcome reminders of feeling regained.

Footsteps were heard on the stairs and seconds later, without waiting for him to answer the knock, Isobel pushed open the door.

"Matthew? What happened? Are you in pain?"

He glowered up at her, still clutching his leg, his fingers only increasing the pressure he could feel. "I-" His voice stuck in his throat and he was forced to swallow several times.

Isobel closed the door behind her. "Did you fall? Shall I look at it?"

Matthew waved her away and eventually managed to choke out, "I kicked the chest."

"You kicked the chest."

For a moment they simply stared at each other, Isobel anxiously and Matthew malevolently. Then, when he did not seem inclined to say anything more, his mother sat down next to him on the bed and said quietly, "You should leave the packing to Molesley if it's too much for you."

"It's not the packing, Mother."

Isobel nodded at the floor. "No, I didn't think it was." Then her eyes caught sight of the dog and she glanced at him. "What's that toy doing here again? Are you taking it with you?"

He stretched out a trembling hand. "Don't touch it! It – it's cursed!"

She had been going to pick it up but now she stilled and sat back up again. "Ah."

Matthew sighed, frustrated with her lack of argument. Deep down he knew he was being unreasonable. Why wasn't anyone going to fight him, force him to confront himself and make him feel even worse than he did already?

For several minutes they sat side by side, lost in their thoughts, the only movement the progress of the second hand on Matthew's alarm clock, the ticking an obtrusive interruption of the silence.

"Lavinia wanted you to be happy," Isobel ventured eventually.

Matthew turned to glare at her as if he could not understand what she was saying. "I shall never be happy again!"

"Matthew-"

He shook off the hand she tried to lay on his arm. Once more, anguish washed over him and made articulation difficult. "You see, for one brief moment, I thought that perhaps- And then, gone – gone forever!"

"Your relationship with Lavinia wasn't brief, dear. Dismissing it won't help, I don't think. I know you're mourning her but -"

He stood up abruptly and winced as he put his weight back on his leg. "I'm not," he interrupted, "talking about Lavinia, Mother!"

Stifling a groan and relishing his difficulty in performing the task, he slowly bent down and picked up the toy dog from the floor and placed it on the top of the dresser more gently than might have been expected. Isobel watched his every move with the wariness grown from two months of having to deal with his snapping and unpredictability. After Matthew had limped to the window and leaned his arms against the frames, she continued to observe the talisman thoughtfully.

"Have you ever considered her feelings?" she asked after a long pause.

He stiffened. "Lavinia's dead. What feelings are there to consider?"

"It seems to me that you do nothing except consider Lavinia's feelings or what you think they were," she replied mildly, "but I wasn't talking about her either."

Matthew stared out of the window. Everything outside was green and luminous in the hot summer sunshine. Inside the house, he felt trapped and stifled. The very air seemed to be preventing him from speaking.

"I don't want to discuss it, Mother," he retorted after another long pause without turning round. "In fact, I wish you'd leave. I need to finish packing."

Isobel stood up sharply. She took a step towards the door, and then stopped. Her hands, clasped in front of her had begun to shake. "No, Matthew," she said decisively.

He turned to look at her. "No?"

"You may not want to talk about it, but I do! I've really had enough of you! Do you know how hard it's been these last few months putting up with your silences and constant bad temper?"

"How hard it's been for you?" he exclaimed, drawing back in offence. "Mother, my fiancée-"

"Your fiancée died! So have lots of people's fiancées! And I know that you're mourning Lavinia, we all are-"

"Are you? Are you really?"

"Of course I am; she was a dear, sweet girl. Her death was a tragedy in every possible way. But grief for her is not what is driving this, is it? You are not running away to Manchester because Lavinia died of the 'flu!"

He shook his head at her in warning. "Mother..."

"What are you actually going to do there? Do you have a job to go to? Do you even have somewhere to live?"

"Mother! I wish-"

Once started, it was hard to make Isobel stop and now that she had begun on this long desired topic, she would not back down. "You can't stop me from speaking, not now, Matthew. I have stood by all this time in the hope that you would come to your senses, but-"

"There is nothing wrong with my senses."

"Did Mary give you that? That toy you wouldn't let me throw away?"

His panicked expression was answer enough and Isobel's set into even greater determination. She strode across the room and picked it up and as she did so Matthew sprung into action and reached out for it, a moment too late.

"What are you going to do with it then?" she asked. "Just keep it around with your socks in case it decides to curse you some more? You are the master of your destiny, not a stuffed toy! The war's over and you are no longer a little boy!"

Everything she said was only making him feel more and more angry. How dare she bring up Mary at this stage? Just the very thought of her made his blood boil with rage and longing and guilt.

"So stop treating me like one then," he replied coldly. "And give me that. You're right; Mary gave it to me, but it means nothing. I forgot I had it."

"It meant something before." She gave it to him relunctantly.

"That was before!" he cried, shoving it into his pocket. "God, Mother, I can't-"

He made as if to leave the room but she anticipated him and darted between him and the door.

"Before what exactly, Matthew? Before you realised she still loved you or before you realised you still loved her?"

His mouth fell open. "I don't-"

"Don't look at me as if it's coming as a surprise. Her feelings are quite evident, but yours... That's what Lavinia meant, wasn't it, when she was dying?"

Matthew could not speak. He was starting to shake and was forced to grab the bed post.

Isobel continued remorselessly as she began to piece it together for herself as much as for him. "For goodness sake, Matthew, she would have broken it off if she'd lived!"

"I didn't-" He swallowed. "I didn't want to break it off." He voice came out strangled. "It wouldn't have been right, not after everything she did for me-"

Isobel laughed with hollow triumph. "What she did for you! What about what Mary did?"

He only stared.

"Nobody nurses their cousin the way Mary nursed you when you first-"

"What?"

"She rarely left your side; no wife could have been more selfless and attentive. Do you mean to say you have no memory, or do you simply not want to-"

"God."

Now he was feeling sick on top of everything else and when he blindly pushed past his mother to the door, she let him go this time. He couldn't breathe in the suffocating atmosphere of this hot bedroom. He needed – He needed air.

"Where are you going?" called Isobel as he grabbed his hat and cane and pulled open the front door.

Matthew hesitated on the threshold, the muggy air doing nothing to refresh him.

"Out," he said shortly.

She did not own him. He was not beholden to her. He was a grown man! And grown men did not need to tell their mothers when they were going for a walk.

A/N: I... think I'd like to know what you think! Anyway, I wonder where he's going to find himself walking and who he's going to meet... Find out next chapter!